Here lies one conquered, that hath conquered kings,
Subdued large territories, and done things
Which to the world impossible would seem,
But that the truth is held in more esteem.
Shall I report his former service done,
In honor of his God and Christendom?
How that he did divide, from pagans three,
Their heads and lives, types of his chivalry?—
For which great service, in that climate done,
Brave Sigismundus, King of Hungarion,
Did give him, as a coat of arms, to wear,
Three conquered heads, got by his sword and spear;
Or shall I tell of his adventures since,
Done in Virginia, that large continent?
How that he subdued kings unto his yoke,
And made those heathens flee, as wind doth smoke;
And made their land, being of so large a station
An habitation for our Christian nation;
Where God is glorified, their wants supplied;
Which else, for necessaries, must have died.
But what avails his conquests, now he lies
Interred in earth, a prey to worms and flies?
Oh! may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep,
Until the keeper, that all souls doth keep,
Return to judgment; and that after thence
With angels he may have his recompense.
By the will of Robert Dow, a London citizen and merchant-tailor, who died in 1612, the annual sum of 26s. 8d. was bequeathed for the delivery of a solemn exhortation to the condemned prisoners of Newgate near by, on the night previous to their execution. Says the historian Stow:—
It was provided that the clergyman of St. Sepulchre's should come in the night time, and likewise early in the morning, to the window of the prison where they lie, and there ringing certain tolls with a hand-bell appointed for the purpose, should put them in mind of their present condition and ensuing execution, desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be. When they are in the cart, and brought before the wall of the church [on the way to Tyburn], there he shall stand ready with the same bell, and after certain tolls, rehearse the appointed prayer, desiring all the people there present to pray for them.
A work entitled "Annals of Newgate" says, it was for many years a custom for the bellman of St. Sepulchre's, on the eve of execution, to go under the walls of Newgate, and to repeat the following verses in the hearing of the criminals in the condemned cell:—
All you that in the condemn'd cell do lie,
Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die.
Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near,
When you before th' Almighty must appear.
Examine well yourselves, in time repent,
That you may not t' eternal flames be sent;
And when St. 'Pulchre's bell to-morrow tolls,
The Lord have mercy on your souls!
Past twelve o'clock!
We visited many of these venerable churches, generally always on week-days, and found female sextons in attendance,—sometimes almost ready to hang their harps on the willows, as they related the decline from days of old. Our Old South, on Washington Street, is not nearer to commercial activity, nor more removed from the resident population, than are a hundred churches in the world's metropolis.
On our visit to St. Clement Danes, in the Strand,—an elegant structure without and within, nearly 200 years old,—we inquired for Dr. Samuel Johnson's pew, for he there attended church; and we found it near the end of the left gallery, a front pew, No. 18. There are columns as in King's Chapel, Boston, and against one of these the old lexicographer sat for years, often with the smooth-thinking and easy-going Boswell beside him. Making mention of one of these occasions, Boswell says:—
On the 9th of April, 1773, being Good Friday, I breakfasted with him, on tea and cross-buns; Dr. Levet, as Frank called him, making tea. He carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat; and his behavior was, as I had imagined to myself, solemnly devout. I shall never forget the tremulous earnestness with which he pronounced the awful petition of the Litany: "In the hour of death, and at the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us!" We went to church both in the morning and evening. In the interval between the services we did not dine; but he read the Greek Testament, and I turned over several of his books.